THE LATEINER GANG

L-R Lauryn, Mara, Dave, and Sami

About Us, Our Review Policy, & Our Disclaimer

ABOUT USThanks for checking our site out! We are a family of bloggers who spend most of our free time reading and reviewing. We absolutely love books! Mostly we review YA/FIC/ Fantasy/ Middle Grade BUT... recently we have been diversifying our reading selection. All 4 of us contribute to the site. It is our family's "hobby" and we love to do it!REVIEW POLICYWe currently have relationships with many of the top publishers out there and usually get books to review from them. If you are an Author or Publisher and are interested in having us review your book or an ARC, please email us at tlgbrs@gmail.com. We would just like some details on the book and will get back to you immediately. We can review hard copies or ebooks on ibooks, Kindle, or Bluefire. Thanks so much and we look forward to hearing from you!

DISCLAIMER

The Lateiner Gang receives books from several publishers and authors at no cost to us, which we review on our site. We receive no monetary compensation for the reviews. They are provided in return for our honest opinion of the book that is read and reviewed.

AWARDS!!

Blogoversary!

Monday, June 20, 2011

When initially approached on this one I had no idea what it actually was. Once I got my hands on it I LOVED it! That says a lot since Mara is the actual cook in the house!

What I LOVED was that the concept was a simple one, but so creative and perfect I wondered why no one had thought of it before. Here's the deal.... There are a ton of popular titles (mostly recent and best sellers!) that all have some sort of significant "food" item in the story. Let's use the one I was involved with- "Alvor" by Laura Bingham. In the sequel, "Wings of Light" one of the characters makes bread dough rise magically.

So, here is what the book is about.... Christy takes a short description of the story, takes a key "food" ingredient or idea from the book, and writes the recipe. Along with the recipe comes a few blurbs from bloggers...ahem, ahem..... that would be us :o) Seriously, a fantastic idea! You get a ton of info all rolled up in one. Let's look at mine...

"Raised by Magic Quick Rolls"

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could magically make bread dough rise, just like Erin and Bain's mother, Julia, does in Wings of Light, the sequel to Alvor? These rolls are one of my favorite recipes. They are simple to make, requiring only a thirty-minute rise before cooking them from a cold oven.

It's almost magic.

RECIPE

2 1/2 cups warm water

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons yeast

1 tablespoon salt

5 tablespoons shortening

6 cups flour

Mix the water and sugar. Sprinkle with yeast and wait for it to activate. Add salt, shortening, and three cups of the flour. Mix well. Add three more cups of the flour. Mix again. Let rest for 10 minutes. Knead. Roll out and use a clean glass to cut out circles. Using the blunt side of a butter knife, depress a line across the circle of the roll and fold in half, stacking the rolls in a 9x13 inch pan. Let rise for 30 minutes. Put in a cold oven and set the temperature at 400°. Take the rolls out after 25-30 minutes. Makes 2 dozen rolls.

Note: you can form the dough into whatever bread you desire: rolls, loaves, bread bowls, breadsticks, pretzels, bagels etc.

That was 1. IF you want the rest, your gonna have to pick up the book. I would definitely say its worth it. If you love reading, love cooking and eating, and love reading reviews, it's a must buy.

ANYONE WHO LEAVES A COMMENT (and your email address) ON THIS REVIEW WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE ENTERED INTO A GIVEAWAY CONTEST FOR AN AMAZON KINDLE AND SOME FREE COOKBOOKS FROM CHRISTY!!! PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE A FOLLOWER OF OUR SITE TO ENTER! ENTER AWAY!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Sixteen year old Erin and her twin brother, Bain, chose to leave their normal lives, step into the magical world, and become immortal elves. But when it comes to falling in love and solving mysteries, all the magic in the world doesn't seem to help.

As the search for the truth behind their missing mother, they discover new friendships and encounter new terrors. And the closer they come to the truth, the more they learn how forces of evil are pitted against the whole world.

Join Erin and Bain in this thrilling quest that will take you deeper into their world with each turn of the page.

As you all know Laura is a very dear friend to our site and an even better personal friend. Myself, as well sa the rest of the gang adore her and have gotten to know her and her family (shout out to Master P!) very well and we consider her a true friend.

I was fortunate enough to read this when it was still in PDF format for Laura and give he some of my opinions. Obviously if you read Alvor, you know that she really didn't need any of my suggestions. What Laura asked for was the truth. That's what I gave her. I honestly loved it the first time I even read it. What I had mentioned and it is captioned somewhere, is that an author can have a really good book. When they try to expand, MOST of the time they screw the series up and should have quit while they were ahead. I absolutely LOVED Wings of Light. I have been contemplated whether I liked it more than Alvor or not, but I am on the fence. It definitely was not any less exciting than A1 (that's what we will refer to Alvor and A2 for Wings). I think that I liked the details in book 1 better when it was new to us and everything needed to be learned for the first time. I love this book because I felt that Laura really got us deep into the story, gave us answers to MOST of the questions I had through this book and some still left from A1, AND introduces some really cool stuff, like the Wings of Light. Of course, my FAVORITE, the brooch was still in the book and used often. LOVE THAT as well as my other favorite, the pop fountains. Every time she mention them, I wish for one in my back yard. That stuff, along with the magical settings, animals, powers, and action are just fantastic. The book was just plain written very well. I definitely think if you haven't tried A1, go get it. You will be hooked and the good news is A2 will be ready for you to pick up where you left off without delay.

The story of the twins, Erin and Bain, are normal teens who suddenly become invincible elves with crazy powers and one heck of a mean-A** dragon. There is all sorts of magic, like the invisibility ward and the sound ward, which keeps what your saying only in the inner circle who you allow to hear you (how cool??). So much content here, I couldn't put it down. The story for one, got really exciting how you learn the connection between many of the characters. And they were big surprises also. Erin and Bain end up in a ton of messes and situations and seem to be able to work together with their friends and family to solve them. There is all sort of of things going on like trust issues, again, new powers (i wish,wish, wish i was able to use the wings of light! Boy would that come in handy!) You are gonna have to read to find out what it is. Anyway, in the end, Bingham does put a bunch of closure on things, ends with some surprises that I wondered about the whole 2 books, but figured I was crazy for thinking, and coolest of all, left some opened ended issues that I will just DIE if she doesn't write a follow up. Ptinces, and princesses, magical elves and faerie, an enchanted world, ugly as sin villains, and twists and turns around every corner, I am once again in awe at Bingham and her work.

My favorite part of the book was that most of the chapters were short ones, which for the 100th time I LOVE! It makes it way easy to jump around a lot, cover many different angles at a time, and still tie everything together.

SO I am putting this one at the top of my suggestion pile. I seriously would suggest getting these and giving them a shot. It was genuinely hard for me to put them down. Once in a while you guys may not agree with me and think I'm nuts, but I don't think that will be an issue this time around. Go ahead, give it a shot.

NOW THE GOOD NEWS!

Im not sure exactly what Laura and I are going to be doing but it is looking towards are signature " Triple Threat " where the Gang does a review (duh, what I just did), an interview, and a giveaway. I also have a feeling Laura may be feeling generous and giving a couple of copies away. I can even see if she has some old Alvor books laying around so we can give away one of those possibly too. Makes sense if she does. Some of you who haven't read it may want to try Alvor. I guarantee if you do, you will be getting Wings of Light shortly after.

Stay tuned for the interview as well as a collaboration with Laura on some funs stuff including the Giveaways.

Thanks to you all as always and you know the only reason we keep doing this is because of your support.

One final note, one of our most faithful followers since day 1, Sandra Stiles, has taken the leap from English teacher to PUBLISHED author! her new book, Steps of Courage is available online I believe. Not sure about stores yet, but when Sandra comments as usual, she can include a link as to where to get a copy. I will be reviewing it shortly once I finish something else I'm in the middle of.

BTW, BEA was cool. Missed Dashner, but as much as I love him, my brother had met us in the city with surprise Yankees tickets for that day, and as much as I love him, I had to see my Yanks. Sorry Dash and I still love ya!

Last but not least, TLGBRS was recently asked to participate in and ARE in a new book called " The Book Blogger's Cook Book" but Christy Dorrity. It is actually a fantastic idea. Long story short, she took some of the recent best sellers, incorporated a part of their story (synopsis) with a fresh recipe of her own (something related to each book), and then ending it with some reviews for each book. We happen to get Laura Bingham's ALvor, which I thought was cool. I also had one foe Maze Runner, but I don't think I submitted it . Anyway, check it out. The concept is fantastic and I loved reading it. Possibly considering an in depth review.

Ok so I said one final thing 10 times.....shoot me..... Last thing I just want to mention, is that my all time favorite author, the one who actually inspired me to start this site, James Rollins has a new book in his Sigma series coming out in a week or so called "The Devil Colony." If you haven't read him , I suggest you give his stuff a try. Guy got me into this site! He actually has a short story you can buy for peanuts on amazon, which is a middle short story between the new one and his previous sigma novel, The DOomsday Key. Besides the sigma force story, he wrote a bunch of independents, not in a series. These are what got me hooked. I read 8 hours a night, and finished all 12ish of the books he had out in a week or so. From there I was hooked! Just wanted to give a shout out to James who is also a really nice guy.

So that was about all I had to say. KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR THE WINGS OF LIGHT CONTEST! IT'S COMING SOON!

Thanks again to all of you who keep coming to the site and contributing. WIthout you, I would have nothing. You guys rock!